News > SpaceX and satellite companies are stealing the night sky

SpaceX and satellite companies are stealing the night sky

A casual glance into the night sky on a clear night reveals 2,500 stars, giving us a view 16,000 light years away and into our past. This is our greatest natural wonder: the universe. For the vast majority of human history, everyone on our planet enjoyed such a view. That was until about a century ago when we began filling our cities with electric lighting. In 2019 SpaceX launched its first Starlink satellite, the initial pinpoint in a sky-wide “constellation” built to provide internet anywhere on Earth.